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Delusional Denialists

WARNING!

This article may contain traces of irony and sarcasm. If you are perceptionally or ideologically challenged this might be about you.

I usually aspire in this blog to be scientifically objective. This article is an exception. It is my personal, subjective perception. It was supposed to be a part of Titration Theories, but it turned into a rant.

Denialists …

A gaggle of so-called addiction experts (I refuse to call them scientists), who completely ignore the existence of self-titration also deny the existence of any pleasure in the acts of vaping or smoking. They simply claim that any perceived pleasure must be the addicts’ rationalisation and delusion. Based on this ideological dogma they insist—with some absurdly twisted “logic”—that limiting the maximal nicotine content might wean those brainless subhuman addicts.

One of them even publicly told the EU parliament that in her “expertly” opinion vaping would be dangerous because of the missing limit of a cigarette length. The user wouldn’t notice and keep on puffing and thus might even ingest a dangerous overdose of nicotine. That was the “leading tobacco control expert” in Germany. then head of the WHO collaborators infesting the center for cancer research.

… Meddlers …

In my youth there were still a few brands we used to call “lung torpedoes”. Some of these contained up to 4 mg nicotine. Not many people smoked them regularly. And most of them didn’t smoke a lot.

Then the dogmatic meddlers managed to impose a limit. In the increasingly abused name of “Public Health”, of course. Preaching their sanctimonious expertly wisdom from their ivory towers to anyone who would listen. The vast majority of smokers wasn’t affected and didn’t even notice it. Just a minority was inconvenienced by the imposed need to retrain their habit to cope with the remaining too weak products. They had to smoke more to compensate. The result: The total nicotine consumption was maybe marginally reduced, but the total number of cigarettes smoked went up. Net gain for “Public Health”? Negative. But more profits from tobacco taxes and the tobacco industry profited, too.

Of course the tobacco industry was quite happy to jump aboard this healthist propaganda train and introduced the “light” brands. The “experts” had paved the road by promoting the imaginary virtue of reduced nicotine content. Of course that was obvious crap to begin with, but who can blame the tobacco industry for exploiting this free ride? All they care about is money. Well, somebody can:

… Hypocrites!

Now these same “experts” huff and puff and accuse the big bad industry to lie and deceive. Correctly so. But the big bad industry is just expanding on their lies and deception! And nobody seems to notice the ironic absurdity of the whole situation.

I don’t like big companies. All they care about is money. Naturally. BigTobacco is portrait as the BigEvil, trying to kill its customers. I don’t think so. They’ll try to avoid anything that impinges on their profits. That’s all. No demonic ideology. Exactly like the Pharmafia. Strictly business.

Who I really despise are people abusing the term “science” and the public trust increasingly less associated with it.

Who’ll stop them?

It should be obvious by now that these “experts” are on the same scientific level as flat-earthers. But they still keep on publishing their ideological dogma in journals as if their claims had anything scientific to them. They give science a bad name.

Real scientists need to stand up an put them where they belong. In the kindergarten of pseudo science and conspiracy absurdities.

Addition: A good friend mentioned another group of experts I missed in my rant: THR experts who support vaping as vastly less harmful than smoking, but also advocate further limiting of nicotine levels in tobacco cigarettes.

With friends like these …

I really appreciate that these experts correctly embrace the objective scientific evidence that doesn’t show any significant health problems caused by vaping.

Which by itself already should be rather disturbing. I used to assume that it would be totally normal for any real scientist to objectively evaluate scientific studies. That those who abuse the scientific idea to promote some ideological or financially motivated goal where just a few bad apples. Curtained by the scientific community. Instead they have been rotting the barrel. Now I know that I can’t even trust scientific publications when several seemingly independent source seem to come to similar conclusions. And this rot has infected the tree of science all the way. From the roots to the leafs.

More and more people notice this rot. Trust is dwindling. All thanks to those meddling “experts” who think it’s acceptable to exaggerate or even lie if it serves “The Greater Good”. Or do junk science designed to produce the desired results.

And guess WHO screwed up big time. Again and again. First they cried “WOLF!” several times for some animal flu. Which only resulted in states being forced to buy huge amounts of Pharmafia stuff that later even turned out to be rather useless anyway. At their luscious private party in Moscow the head honcho crowed about the importance of the humiliation of smokers and vapers while dismissing the raging Ebola epidemic in Africa as just another biological crisis.

The unavoidable result of this socially engineered distrust is obvious. If there happens appear any serious global health crisis, where it really would be necessary to trust experts, people won’t. Even I will first want to verify the alarming findings, before I commit to some—this time—sensible precautionary measure. Others will simply refuse to believe it. This could prove fatal. Big time. And all because some meddling zealots had to muddy the scientific waters.

But I digressed. Back on topic.

A lot of this subgroup of THR experts can only see the applicability of vaping as another, more efficient form of NRT. They can’t—or don’t want to—see the difference and what it means. So they often also promote the medicalisation of vaping. In the mistaken belief that this would be beneficial for the “efficacy” of vaping.

… WHO needs enemies!

But no matter how supportive they are of vaping, I can’t and won’t accept their meddling attempts to push smokers “For their own Good”.

I despise this hubris of “social engineering” aka eugenics. Despite all the claims of caring for the health of the affected smokers, it’s not a “War on Smoking”, but effectively a “War on Smokers”. Always has been. It’s the same kind of propaganda that led to the atrocities against other more and more ostracised groups in the past. Teaching people to hate. Not the behavior as claimed, but effectively the people. Dehumanizing a whole part of society.

I have to admit, I haven’t watched the video yet. I got a kick out of the one that said one could get too much nicotine because they might puff too much on the ecigarette, as it was longer than an actual cigarette. Surprisingly, I can see many believing that, not realizing that cartomizers do run out of eliquid. smh

Potschke-Langer is another wilfully uninformed charlatan from the “Simple Simon Chapman” school of pseudo science. We really need to call for these alleged experts to be removed from whatever posts they now hold. How is it possible that one could be so utterly stupid as to suggest that length has anything to do with vaping or to deny that people enjoy smoking and likewise vaping?
C.B.

I wasn’t aware of the main point you expose here.
I always thought the nicotine reduction in cigarettes was planned by the tobacco industry.
But finally it’s totally logical: The tobacco industry simply reacted on the nicotine paranoia these so-called scientists initiated.
Thank you for the information.

I decided to research it after TFK made a song and dance about “lights in 2007.

“In overturning a lower court ruling, the Court unanimously rejected Philip Morris’ argument that such cases should only be heard in federal court because they claimed that tobacco companies acted as “officers” of the United States government in their testing and marketing of light cigarettes.”

And they did.
The whole story is an interesting one, I’ll post it straight to moderation as there are so many links.

Meanwhile, here is Ernst Wynder.

Ncab Subcommittee Meeting 741101
November 1st 1974

“Purpose of the meeting, which – said Dr. Rhoads – was being taped, was to prepare
a draft document for consideration by the National Cancer Advisory Board at their November 18-20 meeting, responding to the recent request by President Ford for documentation….”

Page 3
“Dr. Wynder felt that regulatory action should cover the entire spectrum of smoking dependent diseases and that if the 1974 average tar and nicotine contents of cigarettes (18.4 milligrams,and 1.27 milligrams respectively) are acceptable to the majority of smokers, there is no reason they should not be acceptable to all smokers.

The labeling of cigarettes with a precise tar and nicotine content may not be specifically clear to the consumer, and a qualitative label of “light” may be allocated for all cigarettes below 12 milligrams of tar and 0.8 milligrams of nicotine, hoping that the consumer would find a more immediate signal for his choice.

Dr. Wynder also reminded the group that in the long run it would be necessary to look for quantitative as well as qualitative changes, with the kind of research that is now being conducted by the Tobacco Working Group and the Smoking and Health Programme in the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Wynder also voiced strong concern that legislative attempts at cigarette regulation would have little chance of being approved ,and expressed his favor for recommendations to encourage voluntary regulation by the cigarette industry.”https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=mkch0119

The National Cancer Advisory Board has called for Federal regulation of tar and nicotine content in cigarettes in the agencies annual report, which was sent to Congress today by President Ford.
The President disassociated himself from the potentially controversial proposal.

In a letter accompanying the report, Mr Ford said, “It should be pointed out that there is considerable dispute as to whether there exist adequate scientific evidence on which to base safe levels of tar and nicotine under responsible regulatory action”https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=zpgf0177

So he had sent them a letter asking them for what scientific evidence their request was based on.

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT TO Dr. JONATHAN E. RHOADS, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL CANCER ADVISORY BOARD October 18, 1974

Dear Dr. Rhoads,

I have – received and reviewed a preliminary copy- of the 1974 annual report of the National Cancer Advisory Board. In several places,the Board’s report recommends Federal regulation of the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes. The report does not, however, provide an assessment of the scientific evidence at hand which should provide the basis for such regulation.

In order that all concerned may be fully informed, I would like to request that the National Cancer Advisory Board review the existing scientific evidence on an urgent basis and provide me with an assessment of the extent to which there exists a scientific basis for responsible regulation of cigarettes.

I recognize that all questions of regulation necessarily involve a certain amount of reasonable disagreement as well as the exercise of sound judgment. Nevertheless it is critically important that our judgments be soundly based so that we may proceed with the greatest amount of wisdom.
I know I can count on the National Cancer Advisory Board to provide me with scientific advice on this important matter-of public concern.

“October 23, 1974 MEMORANDUM President Ford’s letter to Jonathan Rhoads, October 18, 1974, is capable of being misunderstood. The UPI story the same day increased the chances, by portraying it as a Presidential initiative against the tobacco industry. (E.g., “President Ford today expressed interest in the possibility of regulating by law the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes. He asked the National Cancer Advisory Board to provide for him by Dec. 1 ‘scientific advice on this important matter of possible concern.”‘)

What was, in fact, a Presidential slap on the wrist to the NCAB for an unsubstantiated recommendation, is being perceived as a White House move against the tobacco industry. This was the reaction of the antismoking clique, and initially of the tobacco industry. The story was largely ignored by the press, however, but depressed Phillip Morris stock by $100 million….”

“Purpose of the meeting, which – said Dr. Rhoads – was being taped, was to prepare
a draft document for consideration by the National Cancer Advisory Board at their November 18-20 meeting, responding to the recent request by President Ford for documentation….”

Page 2
“Dr. Wynder felt that regulatory action should cover the entire spectrum of smoking dependent diseases and that if the 1974 average tar and nicotine contents of cigarettes (18.4 milligrams,and 1.27 milligrams respectively) are acceptable to the majority of smokers, there is no reason they should not be acceptable to all smokers.

The labeling of cigarettes with a precise tar and nicotine content may not be specifically clear to the consumer, and a qualitative label of “light” may be allocated for all cigarettes below 12 milligrams of tar and 0.8 milligrams of nicotine, hoping that the consumer would find a more immediate signal for his choice.”https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=mkch0119

Wynder
“He is a young man ‘far gone in enthusiasm’ for the causal relationship between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. (I had been told when I was in New York this spring that he was the son of a revivalist preacher and had inherited his father’s antipathy to tobacco and alcohol.)”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117791/

Medicine: Doctors at Work
Friday, Apr. 21, 1961

“Dr. Ernest L. Wynder of Manhattan’s Sloan-Kettering Institute has discovered that a nonflammable part of a waxlike chemical in tobacco smoke acts to inhibit substances that can cause cancer.
The anticancer agent (Wynder once thought that the entire substance caused cancer)”http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895307,00.html

Release on tar and nicotine reduction 1975

“The research conducted by the Smoking and Health Program of the National Cancer Institute and other national and international organizations has identified promising techniques for reducing toxic elements of smoke. These techniques fall into three general categories.

Changes in Cigarette Construction
The burning rate and the amount of air mixed with the smoke while the cigarette is being puffed can be altered by the use of cigarette paper of greater porosity, and by providing aerating mouthpieces.

These methods reduce the amount of tobacco burned during inhalation, and by diluting the smoke recieved by the smoker make it less hazardous.”

Page3

Further dilution could be achieved with “cellulose synthetic tobacco extenders, inorganic salts, clays and kaolin” in reconstituted tobacco sheets and suggest that tobacco can be “expanded, puffed or freeze dried so that less of it is required to fill each cigarette”https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=slxm0005

Presumably they thought the way to make cigarettes safer was to use less tobacco.

“Washington, DC – The U.S. Supreme Court today delivered an important victory for consumers by ruling that a class-action lawsuit against Philip Morris alleging the fraudulent marketing and sale of “light” cigarettes can be heard in state court, in this case in Arkansas.
In overturning a lower court ruling, the Court unanimously rejected Philip Morris’ argument that such cases should only be heard in federal court because they claimed that tobacco companies acted as “officers” of the United States government in their testing and marketing of light cigarettes.

The problem with these new “safer” cigarettes designed by a comittee of antismokers, is that they didn’t taste of anything (especially if they were now full off “cellulose synthetic tobacco extenders, inorganic salts, clays and kaolin” and drilled full of holes) and people wouldn’t buy them.

ASH UK, before it hid this article from public view, offered an explanation of why they then compounded the problem by filling the cigarettes with additives.

“Prior to 1970, the use of additives in tobacco products was prohibited without special permission from the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, under Section 176 of the Customs and Excise Act, 1952. This permission was given only within very strict limits and mainly in respect of flavourings in tobacco products other than cigarettes. The prohibition extended to the importation of tobacco products containing additives as well as a ban on the production of cigarettes with additives for export.”

“The rise of additives in tobacco products is intimately linked with the strategy to reduce tar yields. The amount of tar and nicotine in smoke is measured by a standard smoking machine in which the cigarette is smoked with a fixed puff volume and frequency with tar and nicotine residues collected on a filter and weighed. Governments have insisted on reducing tar levels as measured by this approach, hoping that this would reduce tar exposure to smokers — and therefore lead to reduced harm.

“The tobacco industry argues that one of the key purposes of additives is to make lower tar cigarettes more palatable. The ISCSH accepts this and notes:
“Some smokers find existing low and low to middle tar brands unsatisfying, but if those who smoked middle or middle to high tar cigarettes could switch to low tar brands whose acceptability was improved by additives, the dangers of smoking could be reduced.
The Committee recognises the potential value of using flavouring additives in this way.”

Low tar cigarettes and additives
“One of the prime justifications for the addition of artificial flavourings is to replace the lost flavour of the diluted smoke. This has in theory been done to facilitate the switch to low-tar. However, any hoped-for health benefits from low-tar cigarettes have largely failed to materialise. At the same time an extremely lax regulatory regime for additives has emerged. Although smokers of lower tar cigarettes may be consuming as much tar and nicotine in total, they will be consuming greater volumes of diluted smoke to do it. This is perhaps analogous to drinking watered down wine – it is possible to become intoxicated, but drinkers will have to consume more and the flavour will be weaker.”

Regulation. The existing regulatory framework is based on the assumption that additives are useful to facilitate consumer acceptance of lower tar yield cigarettes. By facilitating the switch to lower tar products, it was hoped that tobacco additives would lead to ‘health gains’. No data is available to show that additives are in fact used only or predominantly in lower yielding brands. However, there is now good evidence that questions the value of low tar cigarettes. Low tar cigarettes have generally used perforated filters to dilute the smoke with air.

Smokers learn to block the holes, often subconsciously, thus adjusting the dilution of nicotine in the smoke. The smoker may also compensate by smoking more intensely. With the primary rationale for a relaxed regime discredited, it is necessary to adopt a new approach.”http://old.ash.org.uk/html/regulation/html/additives.html

Well it’s a theory.
Why would you spend good money on cigarettes with holes in and then block them, when there are plenty of other cigarettes without holes?

While we are at it, I wanted to know what this “tar” thing was that they were so scared of, as a gardener I knew there was no tar in a tobacco plant and there would be no reason to put it in a cigarette.

It turns out that what they mean is Tobacco Smoke Condensate.

Long before they even knew what was in it, they did experiments.

Doll on Tobacco tar.
“Some, however, had been sufficiently impressed to try to produce cancer with tobacco tar on the skin of laboratory animals. Roffo succeeded in doing so in the Argentine in 1931, using rabbits, but his results were generally dismissed in the UK and the US on the grounds that the tobacco had been burnt at unrealistically high temperatures. Experiments in Britain were negative (Leitch, 1928; Passey, 1929) apart from one which produced one cancer in 50 animals and led Cooper et al (1932) to conclude that “tobacco tar is relatively unimportant in the causation of cancers”.

Solanesol: a review of its resources, derivatives, bioactivities, medicinal applications, and biosynthesis
2015

Abstract

Solanesol, which mainly accumulates in solanaceous crops, including tobacco, tomato, potato, eggplant, and pepper plants, is a long-chain polyisoprenoid alcohol compound with nine isoprene units. Chemical synthesis of solanesol is difficult; therefore, solanesol is primarily extracted from solanaceous crops, particularly tobacco leaves. In plants, solanesol exists in both free and esterified forms, and its accumulation is influenced by genetic and environmental factors.

Solanesol is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry as an intermediate for the synthesis of ubiquinone drugs, such as coenzyme Q10 and vitamin K2. Solanesol possesses antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-ulcer activities, and solanesol derivatives also have anti-oxidant and antitumour activities, in addition to other bioactivities. Solanesol derivatives can also be used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and wound healing.”https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11101-015-9393-5#/page-1

I’m quite glad that I never wasted my money on “light” cigarettes.

Now, much to your relief I’m sure, I shall keep quiet on the subject. : )